1919:

• World War I ends officially with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles; Germany is defeated. Germany is further humiliated by being forced to reduce its army and pay $57 trillion for damages. This punishment ruins Germany's economy and angers its citizens. Some of this anger is directed at an old scapegoat, the Jews.

• Adolf Hitler starts attracting crowds with his fiery speeches.

• The Nazis issue a 25-point program directed against German Jews.

• The Nazis fail in an attempt at overthrowing the democratic government of Germany called the Beer Hall Putzt
• Hitler is brought to trial and convicted but attracts a great deal of attention with his speeches

• Hitler starts serving a jail term for his part in the failed plot. In jail he writes his autobiography, MEIN KAMPF (My Struggle), in which he outlines his racial and religious theories: Germans, a "master" "Aryan" race, should rule the world; their evil enemies, the Jews, also want to rule the world.

 

• There are economic problems in Germany and throughout the world after the Depression. The Nazis win 18% of the vote by promising jobs and a strong Germany in times of a worldwide depression. HITLER COMES TO POWER!

• The Nazis become Germany's largest political party, winning 37% of the votes. The people want strong leadership to help alleviate the continuing economic and political problems.

 

• HITLER IN POWER: January 30 -- Hitler is appointed Germany's Reich Chancellor. He immediately suppresses political opposition by enacting a ban on meetings and publications that endanger the "public security." By February, he starts curtailing the rights of Jews by issuing a series of emergency decrees. For "purification of the Aryan race," the first concentration camp, Dachau, is opened in Nazi Germany.

• Nuremberg Laws Passed -- The "Reich Citizens Law" declares that only persons of "German blood" are Reich citizens, and that those of "impure blood" are inferior.

• Buchenwald Concentration Camp Opens -- Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals are sent here for extermination as "enemies of the Reich."

• 'Kristallnacht' ("Night of Broken Glass") -- Pogrom in Germany and in Austria.

• Hitler invades Czechoslovakia and Poland.
• Ghettos are established in occupied Poland by order of Reinhard Heydrich; Jews are isolated from their communities. Directive by Hans Frank to establish 'Judenraete' (Jewish Councils) in the Government-General.
• First Polish ghetto established in Piotrkow; soon after, many other ghettos are established.
• Identifying arm bands made obligatory for all Jews in Central Poland.

• Germans invade Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France.
• Himmler directive to establish a concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland.
• Vichy government in France passes anti-Jewish laws.
• Warsaw ghetto sealed off.

• Heydrich is appointed by Goering to carry out the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" (the extermination of all Jews in Europe).

• Deportation of German Jews to concentration camps begins.
• Experimentation with gassing at Auschwitz begins.
• Protestant villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in southeastern France start protecting between 2,500 and 5,000 Jews.
• United States enters the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

• Wannsee Conference on the Nazi "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."
• Deportation of 300,000 Jews from Warsaw ghetto to Nazi death camp at Treblinka begins.
• Extermination begins at Sobibor, Belzec, and Majdanek camps.
• Unified Partisan Organization (FPO) set at Vilna.
• Resistance begins in other ghettos.
• "Zegota," a Polish underground movement to save Jews, established in Warsaw.
• 100,000 to 400,000 Gypsies deported to Auschwitz in December 1942.

• First armed resistance in Warsaw ghetto.
• Bermuda Conference is held. It is a fruitless discussion between the United States and Britain for deliverance to safety of the Nazi victims.
• German army occupies most of Italy.

• Liquidation of Warsaw ghetto.
• Warsaw ghetto revolt.

• Himmler orders the liquidation of all ghettos in Poland and the USSR.
• Danish underground saves 7,000 Jews.

• Revolt in Treblinka.

• Underground in Budapest forges documents for over 100,000 people.

• Hitler invades Hungary.
• Deportation of 14,000 Slovakians and Hungarians to Auschwitz.

• Allied invasion of Normandy D-Day.

• USSR liberates Majdanek death camp
• Warsaw uprising, crushed by Nazis, causes 200,000 casualties.
• Evacuation of Auschwitz.

• Yalta Conference in February, where Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt meet to discuss their strategy in 1945.
• Hitler commits suicide April 30.
• Germany surrenders; end of Third Reich on May 6, 1945.
• Himmler orders destruction of Auschwitz crematoria as Nazis try to hide evidence of their death camps.

• Auschwitz-Birkenau is liberated by USSR troops.
• Buchenwald is liberated by the United States.
• Bergen-Belsen is liberated by British.
• Dachau is liberated by the United States.